


The Night Vale Edition of Scrabble (Involves Spirits)

by Iodine



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Scrabble would probably be more fun with ghosts and random accidental summonings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-21 14:19:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/901275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iodine/pseuds/Iodine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos tries to get away from Night Vale, but all roads lead right back to it. Instead, he hangs out with Cecil and tries to play Scrabble/not go insane. He only succeeds at one of those.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Night Vale Edition of Scrabble (Involves Spirits)

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a completely-normal-and-baffled/frightened/frustrated-with-Night-Vale!Carlos, who is less intrigued and more exhausted with all this madness, but decides to just go along with it.
> 
> This hasn't been edited by anyone except me, so if you find any mistakes feel free to point them out, or give any criticism you’d like to offer. Be as blunt as you like, I need to know what I’m doing wrong/if this is actually any good/if I should stop forever.

Carlos tries to get away from Night Vale seven months after arriving. He gets in his car and drives for _eight consecutive hours_  in a straight line on the same road he came into town on. When he finally sees a small town on the horizon he thinks ‘ _thank god,_ ’ but as he gets closer, there’s a strange sense of foreboding. But also a sense of relief and welcome that he thinks may not actually be his own feelings. 

And then he sees it. Off in the distance, the ‘ _Welcome to Night Vale!_ ’ sign.

 

"No.  _No fucking way_." he says. The radio suddenly bursts to life from the mostly silent static it had been (across all stations, he checked.)

 

"Ladies and gentlemen! I have some  _wonderful_  news!" Cecil’s unmistakable voice quivers with excitement, “Carlos the scientists is back in town!"

 

Carlos pulls over underneath the glowing neon (now that he’s this close though, he’s pretty sure that’s not actually neon. Neon usually doesn’t radiate a bone chilling cold and doesn’t sing with the voices of a thousand ancients in tandem with a children’s choir when burning,) and kicks the sand and curses futilely into the night air. From his open car window, he can still hear Cecil.

 

"Oh. Oh dear. Carlos, are you having car trouble? Is everything alright?"

 

"Oh piss  _off_ , how are you seeing me? Can you even hear me?"

 

"I can see you through the government-mandated invisible security bots that follow around all Night Vale citizens, and I can hear you through the radio; it’s two-way, don’t you know? They all are."

 

Carlos screams into the desert night. The glow cloud across town turns a brilliant shade of indigo and seems to be observing him. Cecil’s voice is still cooing gibberish at him from the car when Carlos slips back in, resting his forehead on the steering wheel and trying not to whimper.

 

"Aren’t you running a radio show right now? Can’t people hear you?" Then, a thought that makes his lips turn in a frown, “Can they hear  _me_?"

 

"Oh no, this is our private radio. The public WTNV radio is on pre-recordings of the news— I always keep some handy for when I want to slip away and grab a coffee. Although this one is news from 10 years ago, but I don’t think anyone will notice."

 

"We… have a private two-way station?"

 

"Yes! Everyone in Night Vale does with everyone else."

Carlos thinks and tries to do the math. He’s not sure how many people live in Night Vale, the number seems to fluctuate randomly between three and a few thousand. Still, if everyone has a private two way station with everyone else, that’s possibly well over a million stations, how—

“ _No_." he tells himself firmly, " _Don’t think about it. It wont make sense_." Instead, he asks Cecil through their private two-way radio how to get away from Night Vale. Cecil takes a long pause before answering, sounding rather hurt.

 

"You want to…  _leave?_  Is everything not up to par? Did something happen, did someone do something? If this is about Telly shearing off your glorious wavy locks, he already got his punishment in the form of his cerebral cortex melting and causing him to descend into gibbering madness, doomed to wander the sand wastes until the desert consumes him. Or if its about the portal beneath your bed that connects to the ‘Night Vale Maximum Security Prison for Dangerous Pan-Galactic Interlopers’, I can get someone to fix that. Or if it’s—"

 

"It’s all of it!" he shouts, exhausted and frustrated and questioning his own sanity, not to mention the sanity of everyone around him. “I want to go back to a nice, normal town where librarians don’t kill every sixteenth person to sign out a book, where the stars don’t periodically fall from the sky for no discernible reason, where the hospitals give out vaccines to  _prevent_  sicknesses, not  _cause_ them just to see what happens."

 

"Carlos," Cecil says softly, as if talking to a tantruming child, “those things _are_ normal."

 

"They are not! They  _aren’t!_ " he wails, pounding his fists against the steering wheel. Cecil coos some more soft nonsense at him, tells him gently (and rather hypnotically) to ‘ _go home and get some rest. Everything will be better in the morning. Everything will be better. It will all be okay_ …’ but then suddenly breaks it with “Hey! Or you could come to my house, we could hang out and play Scrabble!"

 

It’s a testament to how far insanity has dragged him down that he instantly agrees. Cecil is by far the most normal person in town, which really says something about the town considering he has a third eye and forked tongue, and and as-of-yet-unknown-to-Carlos amount of tentacles. (Where the fuck does he keep those tentacles?)

On the radio, Cecil shrieks with joy and jabbers off his address, adding “Don’t mistake it for the _other_ , completely identical house next door. That one is haunted and if you go in it you’ll be trapped for eternity." Then the radio switches automatically back to Cecil gushing to the town at large about how ‘Carlos the beautiful’ will be coming over for a rousing game of midnight Scrabble, which in his announcer voice manages to sound incredibly suggestive.

 

Carlos shuts the radio off and concentrates on not getting lost on the ever-shifting streets of Night Vale.

 

—

 

It takes him almost half an hour to find Cecil’s street, which is rather impressive considering every fifth Friday the street names are changed at random, and he’s  _pretty_  sure half the streets he just drove down weren’t there a few days ago.

True to Cecil’s word, there are two completely identical houses near the end of the street, but what Cecil had  _neglected_  to mention, was how to tell which one was his, and which one was the haunted people-eating one. So Carlos parks out on the street and squints at them both until the radio behind him bursts to life unexpectedly and startles him half to death.

 

"You’re here! You’re really here! What are you waiting for?"

 

"Which one is yours? I don’t want to never been seen again if I pick the wrong one."

 

"Oh. Oh! You’re absolutely right! My god, if I—I mean  _we_ , the town of Night Vale— had to go without the blessing of your perfect, beaut—"

 

“ _Cecil._ ”

 

"Right, sorry!"

A few seconds later, Cecil barrels out the door of the house on the right, grinning hugely. 

(Later, Carlos will plant a small flag in the lawn of Cecil’s house, only to turn around and see that the other yard inexplicably has the  _exact_  same flag planted in the  _exact_  same spot as well. Cecil will inform him the only difference is the smell, as ghost houses don’t understand scent and always smell like ectoplasm and burning plastic, whereas Cecil’s house has the ‘pleasant’ smell of whale bones and cellophane.)

 

Cecil’s house interior, much to Carlos’ surprise, looks mostly  _normal_ by Night Vale’s standards, and he finds himself relaxing at the strange sense of familiarity brought on by the lack of blood stains, strange chanting, or menacing figures lurking in dark corners. That is, until he steps into the kitchen and one of the tiles _screams_.

 

"Oh that. That one doesn’t like to be stepped on." Carlos tries to see what one it was that screamed, but they all look the same. He takes a wide step over the threshold instead.

 

"Would you like something to drink? I have orange juice."

 

"Uh, water would be fine."

 

"I don’t have water, only orange juice. But if you want I can run out to the well behind old Oakley’s place and pump you some! It won’t take—"

 

"No! Don’t leave me here—I mean. Orange juice is fine."

 

Cecil grins happily and opens his fridge, which contains _just_  orange juice, and a suspicious swirling mass along the back wall below the light, and thrusts and entire four litre jug of orange juice at Carlos and takes another for himself, before skipping off the find the scrabble set. Carlos stands perfectly still where he is and observes what he can see. 

 

In the kitchen where there should be hanging pots and pans above the island, are instead various swords hanging menacingly, point down. The toaster on the counter is swelling and deflating gently, as if breathing, and he’s pretty sure the fridge magnets (of which there are many) are actually tiny LCD screens connected to various cameras around town. Yes, he sees as he leans in, that’s definitely the inside of the bowling alley, the back door of the gas station, the gym of the local elementary school… Cecil comes back then, juggling his orange juice, a briefcase, and the familiar and completely normal looking box of Scrabble.

 

They head to the living room, with its matching armchair, loveseat and sofa that all appear to be blanketed in lion’s mane, and Cecil sets up on the coffee table while Carlos looks around. The TV looks shiny and new, but reflects back a world not quite their own in it’s fathomless black depths. The bookshelf on the far wall is strangely empty, and the pictures on the walls would be a nice touch if they weren’t all depicting various torture scenes and bloody uprisings and ritual sacrifices. The carpet also has a lot of suspicious and undulating stains on it.

 

Carlos turns back around in time to see Cecil pull the board from the Scrabble box, which is definitely actually a Ouija board but he’s beyond asking by this point. Instead, he takes his large jug of orange juice over to the couch and sits down heavily next to Cecil. 

Cecil rubs his hands together excitedly and shakes the small, opaque plastic bag of letters, then offers it to Carlos. Carlos slips his hand inside to grab letters, and something grabs him back. He screams and wrenches his hand back, only to find it’s covered in a strange fluorescent powder. 

 

"Didn’t you get any letters?" Cecil asks. 

 

"Uh. You can pick them for me if you want." Cecil looks absolutely delighted about that, and roots around and pulls out twenty-five tiny square letters covered in the same fluorescent powder. Carlos takes a sample for later.

 

Cecil goes first and places the words ‘unmitigated divinity’ down on the edge of the coffee table. Carlos sighs and looks at his own letters, which are the letter 'S’ eleven times, and contain absolutely no vowels. He sighs again and spells ‘sun’ using the ‘U’ from Cecil’s word.

‘ _I used to be good at scrabble, I was the household champion. Now here I am using three letter words. There’s a special place in hell for people who use three letter words in Scrabble, and it_ must _be a better place than Night Vale._ ’

 

Cecil looks at him strangely. 

 

"Okay, it’s time to contact the spirit." 

 

Carlos doesn’t even bother to ask what that means, just watches as Cecil pops open the briefcase and slaps some kind of animal heart down on the Ouija board. There’s a puff of smoke and then the gritty, weathered voice of an old woman who spent too many years smoking and drinking.

 

"Cecil, sweetie," she rasps, waving away the lovely violet smoke that accompanied her sudden appearance into the living room, “what have I told you about contacting me on Thurs—oh! Scrabble!" The ghost-woman shifts into a cross-legged position hovering in the air, which doesn’t involve sitting down so much as lifting her legs up. 

 

"Grandma Vines, this is my  _best_  friend, Carlos!" ‘Grandma Vines’ makes a non-committal noise and halfheartedly waves, much more interested in digging through the bag for letters, tossing back in ones she doesn’t want with a grumble.

 

"Uh, this is your grandmother?" Carlos asks.

 

"Oh no, that’s just her name."

 

Grandma Vines assembles her letters to say ‘sorhgut ppp aca snandu ripnesty linto’, which is definitely over the 25 letters that both he and Cecil had grabbed, and also not real words. But he doesn’t care. Just opens his orange juice and sniffs it.

It’s Carlos’ turn again, and this time when he reaches into he bag, his hand is gently caressed by something that deposits a bunch of small squares into his hand.

Again, he is left with eleven S’s. He almost has all the letters to spell ‘earthquake’ now, which he says aloud, only to be informed by Cecil that the letters B, F, J, Q, and W, and on alternating months the letter E, are all illegal in Night Vale Scrabble.

 

"To prevent people from summoning BerfaJoquv-Woolon again." he and Grandma Vines shudder.

 

"You know, I think I’d much rather watch the two of you play." Carlos says.

 

"Are you not having fun? We can play something else, if you want. Hierarchical Monopoly, Twister—or it’s more fun and desert-appropriate counterpart, Sandstorm—"

 

"No, no. Really, I’d like to watch you two play."

 

Carlos watches with with confusion (that’s rapidly becoming his perpetual state here in Night Vale) as Grandma Vines and Cecil take turns placing down what appear to be completely random strings of letters and cobbled together sentences of obscure words.

Eventually, he’s had enough of the orange juice to become aware of the pressing need to relieve himself, only he’s too afraid to ask where the bathroom is for fear of biting toilet seats or mirrors that are actually portals to some other god-forsaken place. Instead, he falls asleep without even really noticing, cheek propped up on his fist.

 

An indeterminate amount of time later, Cecil wakes him up with gentle nudges.

 

"Wow, that game got really intense! You completely missed Grandma Vines accidentally summoning Nordics from times long gone. It almost got messy. Anyways, you must be tired. I have a spare bed you can use. Or you can sleep in my bed, if you’d like. Or anywhere you want really, I don’t mind."

 

"Um," he answers intelligently, “The spare bed will be fine. Do you have a bathroom?"

 

Carlos is washing his hands and staring into his own haggard eyes in the reflection after a blessedly uneventful piss, when he realizes what he just agreed to.

 

Cecil is waiting  _right_  outside the bathroom door when he steps out, nearly running into him. He drags him down the hall and to the right, into a small room with a bed and what Carlos is coming to recognize as a bloodstone ritual spot, but smaller than the ones scattered about town. Cecil babbles on excitedly about not knowing how many blankets or pillows Carlos did or didn’t want so “I brought all of them!"

Carlos tells him to take the ones that are his back to his own room, and then asks if there’s anything about the room he should know. Cecil pauses halfway out the door with his armful of bed accoutrements and turns, face completely sombre and says in his Serious Radio Voice; “Don’t open the closet. Do  _not_  open the closet door." And then suddenly smiles and bids him goodnight. 

 

Carlos eyes the closet warily, noticing the strange shifting lights and smoke curling out from under the door. But he is really, very tired, and he’s sure Cecil wouldn’t let him die, so he just falls into bed and sleeps.

 

—

 

When Carlos next wakes up, the sun is shining and there is someone running their hands through his hair. Thankfully, it’s only Cecil (and when that stopped being worrying, he cannot pinpoint) and it  _does_  feel kind of nice, so he lies back down, still groggy, and lets him do it. 

 

He must doze off again, because when he wakes next, the angle of the light is different and Cecil is  _right there_ , lying on his side next to him, above the covers and very close. 

 

"Good morning again." he says quietly, eyes huge and a tiny, excited smile on his face. Carlos sighs and says ‘hi’.

 

"What time is it?"

 

"Six P.M."

 

"What the _fuck_?" Carlos shoots up, alarmed that he slept for so long. But he’s still kind of sleepy, and oh, wouldn’t it be nice to just lie back down and go back to sleep…

‘ _No_!’ he thinks, and forces himself out of bed. Instantly, he feels better and not tired at all.

 

"How the hell did I sleep for so long?"

 

"Oh, it’s the sleep-encouraging pillows. They whispers dreams into your ears to try and get you to sleep for eternity until your mind withers away and they can enter the empty husk of your body and assume your identity. I bought them at Target. Do you want breakfast?"

Carlos can’t even honestly think of anything to say, so he just follows along (avoiding the screaming tile in the kitchen) and watches while Cecil cooks them scrambled ostrich eggs served with packets of jam. All-in-all, it’s not half bad. 

 

"What did you do while I was sleeping all day?" he finally asks, afraid of the answer. Cecil smiles dreamily.

 

"Organized my runestone collection, cleaned out that thing that was growing in the pantry, watched you... I Counted the freckles on your face and the number of eyelashes you have and how many grey hairs are in your left temple. It’s 205 beautiful freckles, 482 gorgeous eyelashes, and 127  _perfect_  grey hairs, by the way. I have to go to the radio station soon, do you want me to drop you off somewhere?"

Carlos chooses to mentally block out everything after ‘pantry’ and before Cecil’s mentioning of the radio station.

 

"Uh, do you know where I live?"

 

"Of course I do, everyone in Night Vale does."

Carlos tries not to think about his gross lack of privacy and offers to do the dishes, like a good house guest.

 

"Oh no, I just throw them out and summon new ones."

 

The car ride over to his place is strange because Cecil is right next to him, but his voice is on the radio telling the ‘Current, Up-to-Date, and Completely Accurate and Not at All Made Up’ portion of the news. And also because they pass through a ‘short cut’ that definitely isn’t any part of town that exists in this realm.

 

Cecil pulls over in front of the apartment building Carlos lives in that has floors that randomly shuffle their order, and asks “Do you want to come over again sometime?" in the most hopeful voice imaginable. The small part of Carlos that has yet to be ransacked by the special brand of insanity that is Night Vale screams ‘ _No! Stay away at all costs!'_ But an increasingly large part of him reminds him that by Night Vale standards, last night was pretty normal and nice. So he says yes. He can hear Cecil squealing in joy as he drives away.

 

He turns to face the slightly crooked and leaning block of his apartment building and thinks about going inside and checking out those fluorescent powder samples he took yesterday. Or spending the night rearranging his knowledge base to fit Night Vales standards, and therefore prevent the increased decline of his tenuous mental state. He hasn’t decided yet.

 

—

 

He turns on the radio when he gets up to his apartment, just in time to hear Cecil gushing about Carlos having spent the night at his place and, “between you and me, I don’t think Carlos knows how to play Scrabble." Oddly, it makes him smile.

 

**Author's Note:**

> One of my many (many) Night Vale headcanons is that Carlos was just a completely normal scientist guy asked by the government to go find out just what the heck is going on in Night Vale, and the place is baffling and exhausting and driving him mad. Eventually he just resigns himself to being stuck there and lets Cecil heap affection on him.  
> (Most of the time I like to think of him as weirded out but eager to explore and endlessly fascinated by all the strange new stuff. But not this time.)


End file.
